1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a hall controller parameter-setting device for setting parameters in a hall device when installing or maintaining/replacing a double-decker elevator.
2. Description of the Related Art
With recent elevators, controllers having microcomputers are installed in various locations such as the machinery room, the cage and the halls, and the elevator is controlled by allotting the management of each while exchanging the required data by serial transmission. For example, the response to a call from a hall is executed as follows. When the hall call button of a hall device, which hall devices are installed at the halls on every floor, is pressed by a user, the elevator control equipment which is installed in the machinery room receives this signal and exercises control so that it causes the cage to move to that floor.
Hall devices are installed only to the number of the service floors. Therefore, for transmission between the elevator control equipment and the hall device, the elevator control equipment functions as the parent and is often constructed with a so-called party line connection method in which the multiple hall devices become the children. In the case of such a construction, the design is such that errors such as data conflicts are avoided by the various hall devices which are on the same transmission line having respective unique distinguishing numbers, that is to say device addresses.
Here, with an elevator, hall devices are respectively installed at each hall of a building, and the setting of the device addresses for the hall devices of each floor is performed afterwards. FIG. 1 is an illustration of the device address setting method for the hall devices with a single-deck elevator.
Elevator cage 12 moves to each floor by being connected to counterweight 13 by main rope 14. Then, when setting the device addresses of halls 9 on each floor, an operator rides in cage 12 and moves to each floor. For example, when cage 12 has reached the floor level for a certain floor (for example, the 5th floor) elevator control equipment 8 transmits the device address corresponding to that floor on transmission line 15.
In this state, the operator gets out at the hall (5th floor) and presses hall call button 11 of hall device 9. When this is done, that hall device 9 inputs from transmission line 15 via transmission interface 10 the device address which elevator control equipment 8 is transmitting at that time as its own 25 particular device address. The operator once more boards cage 12 and moves to the next floor. By repeating this process, the device addresses of hall devices 9 of all floors are set.
However, with double-decker elevators (or double-deck elevators) in which two cages are connected one above the other, the setting of the device address in hall device 9 sometimes cannot adequately be performed. That is to say, although the device address which the elevator control equipment outputs is a value corresponding to the cage position, in the case of a double-deck elevator there are two, upper and lower, cages. Therefore there is a requirement to produce a reference floor for setting the device address of one or other of the cages.
The double deck elevator has a construction in which two cages are connected vertically. With a normal elevator shaft space, the lower cage cannot reach the highest floor, nor the upper cage the lowest floor. If such floors are regarded as "unreachable floors", when the upper cage is taken as the reference, it is not possible to set a device address for the lowest floor (the unreachable floor), and when the lower cage is taken as the reference, it is not possible to set a device address for the highest floor (the unreachable floor).
Therefore, in order to solve the problem of such unreachable floors, it is desirable to design for the lower cage to be able to reach the highest floor by making the overhead part of the elevator shaft taller and for the upper cage to be able to reach the lowest floor by making the elevator shaft pit deeper, respectively. Hereafter such spaces are called "projecting floors".
However, there are many cases in which it is difficult to create projecting floors due to reduction of the design freedom of buildings, such as problems with infringement of rights to enjoy sunlight, and external appearance; major minus factors such as increase of building cost, and also, in such cases as at the time of replacement work for superannuated elevators (modernization). Thus it is not always possible to provide projecting floors for all double-deck elevators.
In this way, there was the problem that, with double-deck elevators which did not possess projecting floors, it was not possible to set the device addresses of reference cage unreachable floors.